Roger and Out

It's summertime as of this weekend! And for many Marylanders, Delawarites, Pennsylvanians, Virginians and whatever you call people from other states, it's time to visit the Jolly Roger Amusement Park in Ocean City, MD. That is the gigantic seaside spot for bumper cars, go-cart tracks, Splash Mountain/Aqua Loop, a Wild Mouse, Jungle Golf, and a billion ways to spend your fun money. 

And sure, we know that the very term Jolly Roger connotes fun. Who doesn't like being jolly, and who doesn't like people named Roger?

But hold on. The black flag with a leering skull and crossbones that we call a Jolly Roger and associate with pirates is actually not a real Jolly Roger. There were, back in the glory days of high seas piracy, as many pirates plying their trade as there are varieties of Cheerios on the shelf, and that's a lot. This logo to the left developed over the years as a pirate flag, as many buccaneers used variations of it on their ships, but it was not the true Jolly Roger.

(Stop and think - why would a pirate fly a flag that says "I am here to pillage and plunder"? It's like a house burglar in the suburbs driving a white Chevy van with "J. Carson Bagswell - Residential Property Removal Specialist" painted on the side along with his phone number and, of course, his website ("Bagswellbagsyourstuff.com"). 

But I digress. The real Jolly Roger came from the pirate from Pembrokeshire, England, born Bartholomew Roberts, but better known as Black Bart. He originally had a flag showing a whole skeleton on a black background. and he started the trend. But he wore a red coat  Other pirates liked the design and copied it. Black Bart wore a red coat, so French sailors took to calling him "Le Joli Rouge" ("Pretty Red" in English). The pirate to the left is known as "Bartbeard."

British and American sailors then couldn't wait to turn a perfectly lovely phrase like that into a corrupted Franco-American one, so "Jolly Roger" came to mean the flag that Bart flew. It's here >> as it can be seen in the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.

The red background meant that no lives would be spared if Bart captured your ship.

Jolly well right! Tell the ticket taker at Splash Mountain about it.